This invention relates generally to a mechanic's creeper and more particularly to the frame of a creeper.
Creepers are designed primarily to allow a mechanic to lie on his back and roll under a car wherever necessary. A frame to support the mechanic is constructed of readily available wood or metal tubing. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 2,210,585 to Hulbert discloses a creeper with flat wooden frame members. U.S. Pat. No. 2,595,783 to Griffin shows frame members constructed of straight metal reinforced tubing. To this frame a wood or metal sheet is secured to form the creeper bed.
These creepers and others available wear out rather quickly because their frames are of limited strength. They are suitable at most for supporting the weight of a mechanic, but they-cannot support much heavier items such as an engine or transmission that it may be desirous to move. For such a purpose, a separate dolly is required.
An obvious way of increasing the strength of the creeper frame would be to construct the frame of higher strength material or to use more material in its construction. Both approaches, though, have drawbacks. Using higher strength material or merely more material may still not provide sufficient strength and yet would increase the relatively low cost of a creeper. The use of more material, furthermore, is limited by the size and maneuverability requirements of a creeper. The frame can be no more than several inches in height to mount on castors and yet be low enough to allow a mechanic on the creeper to move freely beneath a car chassis. The use of more castors to provide additional support, on the other hand, would interfere with the creeper's maneuverability.
Therefore, a need exists for an inexpensive mechanic's creeper of superior strength that can be used both as a conventional creeper and as a dolly for moving much heavier loads.